Tips on wants ads for college design graduates

This is how I found both of my jobs and where Erik (my bro) found his job.

1. Matching your level of experience:
Obviously, if it states an entry level position, you're fine. I've found when I was a fresh graduate could apply for ones with 1-2 years experience. It really helps if you've had an internship, because that says you have experience.

2. Keep record of all your want ads
Tape your ads onto a sheet of paper and write down notes next to it.

3. Don't wait too long after graduation
I have been looking at the design want ads almost every Sunday since June of '97. I have found that the number of ads tends to peak during graduation time and a month afterwards. After August,the number of ads drop dramatically.

4. Make your resume faxable.
Many ads will only have a fax number for you to send your resume.
a. So definetely check out how your resume faxes. (You don't want it be unlegible when they recieve it!)
b. Try to use Sans Serif faces. (The serif faces have a little more problems when faxing)
c. Don't have type on fields of gray that are over 10% black.
(anything over 10% will turn very dark when faxed)
d. Don't make your type too small.
e. I highly recommend buying your own fax machine.
-It'll save you lots of headache of having to go to Kinko's.
-It's very professional to put that on your resume.
-It can come in very handy for working at home.
(Some employers will let you do that!)
-It's just plain cool to have your own fax machine!
-You can recieve the artiwu digests via fax!
-A cheap one will only run you about $200.
It's a lifetime investment!

5. Research the company
When at all possible, try to research the company you are sending
to. You can search companies by their name or address or phone
number or fax number at search engines. The best one I've found is: http://www.superpages.com/

The employer would be impressed if you know something about their company. Once you have the company's name, you can go to the library and look them up in the reference section. (I recommend
the Sorkins' Directory of Business & Government - Chicago Edition)

6. Chicago Tribune Career Finder
The Chicago tribune's website posts their wants ads on the web BEFORE the Sunday paper hits people's doorsteps!
http://careers.chicagotribune.com/
(of course there are many other papers, and online directories like monster.com, but this is about print ads in the newspaper)

7. Respond quickly
If responding to a Sunday ad, try as much as possible to respond on Sunday or Monday. No later than Tuesday. You want to show that you responsible and take care of important matters quickly. You could send in your stuff later, but first impressions are important. I've seen my boss put ads in the paper. If someone responds by like Thursday, eek, "What's wrong with this person?"

8. Headings to look under:
Advertising, Art, Design

9. Prepare plain text resume for emailing.
Some places may want you to email your resume to them. Make sure you make a digital copy of your resume and cover letter as a PLAIN text file. Save it in Simpletext to ensure that it is a PLAIN text file. When emailing your resume, you probably won't know if the receiving party can support bold,italics, special fonts, etc. (But you can do tricky things i.e. using underlines for lines___________) I stress having the resume saved and ready to go, because if they are asking for it in email format, then they probably want it quickly.